GHOST LANDSCAPES

Ghost Landscapes Oil on linen Oil on linen 23 x 40 cm 2019

Ghost Landscapes was triggered by thinking about digital images of landscape - recorded images of real landscapes and computer generated virtual landscapes. Given that landscape is the foundation of our lived real-world environment, does the presentation of landscape on a screen mediate our experience of our real-world environment? For example, I am thinking about GPS assisted graphics on screens, such as embedded screens in a car, or a mobile phone. Being told where to go using screen-based guidance systems [often augmented with audible instructions] reduces the need to fully orient oneself within the environment. By this I mean, looking out a car window or looking up from a phone to identify topographical or built environment cues to assist in getting from one place to another. 

Ghost Landscapes was also inspired by thinking about the increasing habit of using screen-based technology to 'entertain' ourselves while travelling as a passenger. If not 'entertaining' ourselves, we continue to work - email, write or examine reports etc. These diversions also reduce real-world interactions with landscape. Simply looking out the window, except momentarily, is a rarity. 

Ghost Landscapes was also inspired by thinking about targeting and surveillance imaging technology, for example, used on an airborne militarised drone. Viewed through targeting and surveillance devices landscape is preemptively positioned as a site of potential mal-intent, misdemeanor, battle, death-in-waiting and/or necro-site. Overlays of computer graphics, such as orienting and targeting graphics, change landscape with occupying intentions and forces most of us are unaware of. 

So, why give this new painting the title Ghost Landscapes? If landscape is occupied, but this goes unnoticed by over-entertained or over-worked people, does this represent a death of landscape? If screen-based representations of landscape become proxy environments, what happens to considerations of real-world landscape as a foundation for environment? Does increasingly persistent surveillance render real-world landscape a place of hostage? If surveillance leads to targeting to sell or targeting to kill, how can landscape provide places of refuge and safety? 

Landscape is falling away from us...........................................

And, as we fall too, there is more to say ..................................

Maybe the ghosts will catch us?

Cheers,

Kathryn

* Please check out my Small Paintings for the Festive Season  

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HUMAN OR ALGORITHM?

HUMAN and a Tree Oil on linen 25 x 20 cm 2019 

NEWS:

• Thursday 14 November, at the IMA, Brisbane, I am on a panel "Landscape and Computer Generated Imagery" with Baden Pailthorpe. The panel discussion will be facilitated by curator, Kyle Weise. A screening of Harun Farocki's Parallel I - IV will follow the discussion. More details are available HERE

HUMAN OR ALGORITHM?

Related previous post is PAINTED ALGORITHMS

As regular readers know I often incorporate strings of colourful binary code into my paintings. I see this as a playfully subversive way to comment on our increasing reliance on digital and cyber systems. I see it as a way to draw attention to data gathering and capture activities that enable the formation of what I call proxy identities. That data assists in targeting activities undertaken by advertisers, governments and social media companies is a concern. Of greater concern is targeting for attack by state and non-state militarised organisations. I am reminded of something Jean Baudrillard wrote when he described a digitally coded destiny where it will be “possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1". (1) And, this recent article "The Captured City The “smart city” makes infrastructure and surveillance indistinguishable" by Jathan Sadowski, highlights concerns about data capture and how data is used. 

HUMAN - Human

Over the years I have created a few paintings that include the word HUMAN or Human 'instructed' in binary code. Lots of ideas have gone, and still go, through my mind when I paint these images. My latest painting is HUMAN and a Tree (above). The 'human' is the string of red zeros and ones, 'instructing' HUMAN. Is this a sign of a human being targeted by software that allows autonomous identification and potential action? Is the code a representation of human species demise, its remnant data-remains stored in 'surviving' digital systems? 

A human body when it dies returns to the Earth, either in burial or as ash. What happens to our digital data after we die? In HUMAN and a Tree I have also included a tree. As regular readers know, this is my interpretation of the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life. The tree in this painting is also red, blood red. It draws attention to the mimicry and subterfuge of the instructed HUMAN code. The tree stands as a beacon on the distant horizon. What kind of warning is it sending?

TREE-OF-LIFE

The tree-of-life is also an important element in HUMAN [below]. This painting parodies a computer screen, perhaps a remote drone pilot's screen, a gun or camera scope. The computer graphic-like lines and markings clearly indicate that a targeting exercise is under way. The binary code at the bottom of the painting 'instructs' HUMAN. While the painting may portray individual human figures, the larger question is - is humanity under siege? 

Unusually for me I have depicted human figures. They are under immanent attack, the cross hairs just need to lock-on. However, the tree-of-life shadows provide some kind of hope. They indicate, to me, that the targeting systems cannot detect or identify everything that constitutes a human being - imagination, love, desire and more. This painting has three types of human identification - the figures, the trees-of-life and the binary code. Which one/s is/are real? You can read more about this painting HERE on a previous post.  

HUMAN Oil on linen 30 x 35 cm 2019

TWO HUMANS IN AMBIGUOUS LANDSCAPES

Two Humans (below) is a 'landscape' with two 'humans' forming unusual topographies in the landscape. The strings of binary code 'instructing' the word 'Human' attempt to occupy the landscape, albeit an ambiguous one. This painting sold recently to someone who totally 'got' it. I get so very excited when people 'get' the parody, the visual puns, the subversive intent!

Both Two Humans and Two Humans: Uploaded [below Two Humans] playfully critique ideas about posthuman uploading of - well - posthuman entities. Things like uploading human minds or memories, so a person can 'exist' forever. Both paintings critique ideas of data identification, data proxy, life in the algorithmic 21st century and discussions about posthuman futures.  

You can read more about the inspiration for these two paintings on a previous post HERE.

Two Humans Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

Two Humans: Uploaded Gouache on paper 24 x 32 cm 2015

AND, NOW TO MY POSTHUMANS!

In both these paintings binary code 'instructs' 'Human'. This code forms part of the posthumans' 'bodies', and in the case of My Future Posthuman [below] it also forms the posthuman's 'head' in the shape of a question mark.

I had so much fun with my posthuman series, painted a few years ago now.

My Future Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

 Is this a Posthuman?  Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

[1] Jean Baudrillard, Passwords, trans. Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 76.


Cheers,
Kathryn
Podcast interview with lead researcher of the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare project, University of Sheffield, UK